


Five Days

by Twice_before_Friday



Series: October? No, I think you mean Whumptober [23]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Exhaustion, Gen, Gil Arroyo Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: Prompt No 23. WHAT’S A WHUMPEE GOTTA DO TO GET SOME SLEEP AROUND HERE?Exhaustion| Narcolepsy |Sleep DeprivationFive days that he's been strapped to a chair, denied food, water, and sleep.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Series: October? No, I think you mean Whumptober [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947595
Comments: 19
Kudos: 76
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Five Days

Five days.

Five days since Bright was abducted as he was leaving the morgue following a debrief on their latest victim.

Five days without so much as a phone call, a letter, a goddamn post-it note, saying why he was taken or what his abductor wants for Malcolm's safe return.

Gil hasn't allowed himself more than two hours of sleep at a time since Malcolm went missing, knowing that every second he spends napping on the couch in his office is another second that Bright is locked away somewhere, having God knows what done to him. And with nearly three decades on the job, Gil mind supplies him with thousands of vivid and gruesome scenarios of exactly what Malcolm could be enduring at the hands of his abductor.

Standing in front of the whiteboard, looking over what little evidence they've managed to gather, Gil finds himself zoning out, lost in a vortex of guilt and anger and fear that he'll be too late. That they'll never find Malcolm at all.

"—deo surveillance without a warrant, do you?" Dani says with a sigh. "Gil?"

"Boss?" JT asks when Gil doesn't respond.

Gil blinks a few times, pulling himself to the here and now and cursing himself for letting his mind wander when Malcolm is relying on Gil to find him.

"Sorry, what?" Gil says, scrubbing a hand over his face and turning to face his team. They look just as exhausted as he feels.

"Boss, you're dead on your feet," JT says, the obvious concern in his tone taking the sting from his words. "You need to get at least a few hours of sleep, man."

Gil is about to protest when Dani chimes in, "You're not gonna be any good to him if you collapse and end up in the hospital."

They're right.

He knows they're right.

But he doesn't care.

"Where are we on the traffic cam footage?" he says.

JT and Dani shake their heads, matching frowns creasing both of their faces as they turn back to the files in front of them

~~~

Five days.

Five days since Malcolm was pulled into an unmarked van as he walked out of the morgue, so focussed on the coroner's report he was reading on his phone that he didn't notice the threat until it was too late.

Five days that he's been strapped to a chair, denied food, water, and sleep.

He's hooked up to an IV, being pumped full of just enough liquids that he's not in danger of dying, but it doesn't help to ease the thirst that's clawing at the back of his throat, that's making his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, and that leaves his lips cracked and bleeding.

He's also hooked up to a catheter, but he tries not to focus on that.

He focuses instead on the gnawing ache in his stomach. The hunger pains started on day two and have grown progressively worse, even though he doesn't even feel hungry anymore. It's funny, he thinks, with how often he disregards food in his everyday life, just how important it suddenly seems.

The sleep deprivation, though, is somehow worse than everything else combined.

Every time he almost falls asleep, the small space flashes in a riot of strobe lights while death metal music floods the room from speakers hanging in the four corners, loud enough that it's physically painful to listen to. For the most part, it's enough to keep him awake, but there are points when his body still threatens to give in despite the external stimulus.

At those points, the IV next to his chair whirs and ticks and an icy-hot jolt of energy pumps through his veins, aiming straight for his heart like a bullseye is painted on the overwrought organ. Everytime it happens, his heart hammers so hard in his chest that it feels like it may actually shatter against his rib cage.

He's not sure if they're watching him and activating it remotely or if it's set to react to readings of his vital statistics, but it doesn't matter one way or the other because the result is the same and he hasn't slept in days and days and days and his head hurts and his brain feels like it's wrapped in cotton and he can't quite think straight to find a way to get free because every time he tries, he forgets what he's doing in the first place.

And beyond all of that, the hallucinations that plague him at the best of times have doubled down and seem to be conspiring to make him lose what's left of his sanity.

He nearly throws up as he watches Martin drag the Girl from the Box and dance around the room with her bloodied and mangled corpse, whispering, "one, two, cha-cha-cha," as a trail of blood lines the floor where they sway. It's not until Martin grins at him with razor sharp teeth that he notices the blood trail is a message, written in a stunning cursive, telling him what he already knows. What he's always feared.

_We're the same_

Tears stream down his cheeks, dehydrating him even further. No one cares enough to help him.

Now and then a man in a clown mask comes in and interrogates him, asking about the NYPDs investigation into the corruption scandal at city hall.

There's nothing for Malcolm to say. It's not even his case.

~~~

"Boss, we got a lead," JT shouts, running into the conference room. Gil pushes to his feet so quickly that the ensuing head rush nearly knocks him to the ground, and he's only kept upright by Dani's hands on his arm.

He knows he shouldn't go. He's a liability at this point and can barely keep upright.

He doesn't care.

He's following JT out to the car before he even realizes his feet are moving. At Dani's insistence, he hangs back while the tactical unit breaches the building, not willing to let his exhaustion compromise anyone's life, especially Malcolm's.

At the all-clear, though, he rushes in before anyone can stop him.

An officer is cutting Malcolm free of the ropes as Gil darts in, but Malcolm barely seems to notice either the man or his newfound freedom. As much as Gil wants to get Malcolm the hell out of there, they can't really shift him until the medics come to remove the IV and catheter, so Gil merely drops down in front of him and tugs him gently into his arms, holding him tight as the kid shakes and cries and collapses against Gil's chest.

Five days.

And they can finally rest.


End file.
